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Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon R9 285

Intro

The Radeon HD 5870 features a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 285, which features core speeds of 918 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 285 should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 5870 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 285

176000 MB/sec

Radeon HD 5870

153600 MB/sec

Difference: 22400 (15%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 285 should be quite a bit (approximately 51%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

Radeon R9 285

102816 Mtexels/sec

Radeon HD 5870

68000 Mtexels/sec

Difference: 34816 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 285 is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon R9 285

29376 Mpixels/sec

Radeon HD 5870

27200 Mpixels/sec

Difference: 2176 (8%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Radeon HD 5870

Radeon R9 285

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x.
The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen.
The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Radeon HD 5870

Radeon R9 285

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.